Child Participation

Children have the right to participate in matters affecting their lives and should be enabled to give their opinions, and to have those opinions taken into account. Through participation, children learn self-expression, empowerment and ultimately greater self-esteem.  Children are a diverse group and therefore children of different ages, abilities, backgrounds, races, and both genders should ideally be included in a consultation process.

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Lucy Jamieson, Hussienatou Manjang,

This report interrogates the normative framework governing child participation in South Africa. It provides an analysis of international human rights obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

CPC Learning Network,

This CPC Learning Network hosted a conversation with partners and faculty affiliates on "Rethinking Child & Youth Participatory Methodologies & Processes: Presentations from our Partner Research Centers in Uganda, Indonesia, and Colombia".

Family for Every Child,

This practitioner guidance paper outlines the work of the Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou -- a charity based in New Zealand that provides support for the children and families of those in prison by providing wraparound support for these families, with home-based social work and a youth mentoring programme. 

Family for Every Child,

This practitioner guidance paper details the work of the VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai centres in New Zealand which centres its work around the belief that care-experienced young people are already experts on the care system – they just need to be offered appropriate training and support to get their voices heard. 

Alessandro Pepe, Elisabetta Biffi, Chiara Carla Montà, Caterina Arciprete, Mario Biggeri,

The purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the relationship between agency and well-being in a group of care leavers (N = 48) recruited from the alternative care services offered by the cities of Florence and Prato in Italy and involved in the Caring project.

Orsolya Szeibert,

This article published in the Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies is part of a complex overview of the connections between the child’s right to be heard and the child’s best interests and parental responsibility matters and cases. The focal point of the paper is how Hungarian codification, judiciary and academic legal literature have changed over the last decade and how they have adapted to the modern child-focused standards.

Hannah Won and co-coordinated by Better Care Network, ACC International Relief – Kinnected, Chan Sinet at Khmeng Onka Cambodia Care Leavers, and Mai Nambooze at Uganda Care Leavers,

The purpose of these guidelines is to support practitioners to develop messaging for children and young people that clearly communicates the intention to transition and the implications for children and young people in care. The guidelines seek to address challenges so that children and young people can fully understand the implications of transition and be granted opportunities to genuinely and appropriately participate in making decisions about their lives. 

Gunnel Östlund, Philip Rautell Lindstedt, Baran Cürüklü, Helena Blomberg,

The purpose of the article is to describe and problematise the practice initiated idea of developing a digital tool for children in child welfare investigations and whether and how this welfare technology is useful for social workers. The results include interview data and descriptions of the research process.

Erika Moldow, Virgie M. Anderson, Stephanie LaShay Benjamin, Barbara Patricia Johnson, Elizabeth McGuan, Donna Xenakis, Alexandra Piñeros Shields, Yanfeng Xu,

In this paper the authors reflect on their process and offer lessons learned from engaging in participatory evaluation that may apply to the field of kinship care and across social service delivery more broadly.

Iselin Huseby-Lie,

This global literature review seeks to draw attention to children’s perspectives regarding contact with birth parents when in out-of-home care. By collecting and systematizing existing knowledge on children’s experiences with contact, this article aims to make it more accessible and easily applicable for further investigation.